Singapore: Koji Sekimuzu, the secretary-general of the IMO, has called for the offshore sector to have some form of global governance, akin to shipping.
Speaking as a keynote on day two of the Sea Asia conference in Singapore, Sekimuzu said offshore remained relatively lightly regulated compared to shipping.
The problem, he said, was that offshore operations take place in sovereign waters rather than international waters, making some sort of global body tricky to conceive.
“When it comes to the offshore sector, the issues are directly related with the sovereignty of the states, so it is not easy to think about global governance in this field,” Sekimizu said.
Sekimizu, who retires from his IMO position this year, said ultimately it would be up to offshore players themselves to decide if they wanted a global governing body or not.
